


brave old world

by nadin



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Domestic, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, M/M, immortality is tough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26173183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadin/pseuds/nadin
Summary: “What if I forget them?” Nile asks without looking up, and a question hangs between them for a long moment. “What if I wake up one day and won’t remember what they looked like, what they sounded like, what they liked to eat for breakfast?”Andy lowers down on the stone steps next to her.“You will,” she says simply, her gaze sweeping over the wide lawn and the field beyond it. “And you will learn to live with it.” She glances at Nile, and the anguish in her all but does Nile in—Andy is good at keeping to herself, at keeping her emotions in check. But when she doesn’t, it lands on you like a punch.Accepting immortality is not easy, but for Nile Freeman, it is not a matter of choice.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf & Nicky | Nicolò & Quynh, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 10
Kudos: 181





	brave old world

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so... Taking my first crack at The Old Guard fic? Hopefully not the last :) 
> 
> (No beta, all typos are mine - apologies in advance!)

It is hard to accept her immortality, but in a way, it is easy, too. Niles wonders how much of it is because nothing has changed, not really. Every day, when she wakes, she lies very quietly, listening for something,  _ anything.  _ The changes inside of her that were not there the night before. But there are none.

She wonders sometimes how much of it is acceptance, and how much is pure denial that is going to catch up with her sooner or later.

She tries not to think of it more than she needs to.

They stay at a safe house for a while, and the first time she steps her foot in it, she can’t help but wonder how safe it is—the place is old, dilapidated, half falling apart. (“Like us,” Nicky tells her when she shares that observation, and she rolls her eyes because—Well, because they are the opposite of that.)

They do it for her, she knows it. It won’t be long before they are going to go their separate ways. They need space, and part of her understands it, but she is grateful for this brief reprieve and the sense of belonging it gives her. God knows when it’s going to happen again. She is not ready to be on her own yet, even if she would never admit it out loud.

“Do I have superpowers or something?” Nile asks them one night when they gather on the back deck, their faces illuminated by nothing but the light streaming through the kitchen windows.

Joe takes a swig of his beer and almost chokes on it, laughing. “Is not dying not enough of a superpower for you?” he asks between coughs as Nicky slaps him on the back.

Nile fiddles with her own bottle, aware of Andy’s eyes on her, but doesn’t look her way.

“I don’t know. I figured there might be other perks, too,” she says, trying to sound nonchalant. “Like flying.”

“You already tried that,” Nicky points out, and it takes her a moment to figure out he’s talking about that plunge she took out of Merrick’s lab.  _ With _ Merrick, no less. “Don’t think it worked out.”

She chuckles and drinks her beer, but it’s hard to shake off the thought. That there is something else lurking inside of her. Something she doesn’t know how to find.

* * *

It’s easy to fall into a routine with them. Living the way she never lived before. She misses patterns, misses the comfort of being a Marine, the steadiness of that life—something that Joe laughs at when she tells him. She doesn’t know how to explain it to him—that despite no day being like the one before, there was the kind of steadiness to her time with the military, the structure that she has been longing for since the day she walked away from it.

“It’s not like you can’t have a life,” Nicky tells her when they are cleaning the table after dinner one evening. “Have a job. Have meaningful things in your life.”

“I just can’t have it long enough for someone to notice that I don’t change,” she mutters under her breath.

He pauses and gives her a look across the table, dirty dishes in his hands.

“It doesn’t take that long to get used to it,” he says, and she can’t help but roll her eyes a little at that.

“How long did it take you?” she can’t help but ask.

“A couple hundred years,” Nicky says, and she laughs because really, what else did she expect to hear.

* * *

Nile doesn’t see Andy often. She is the most restless one of them, though what for, Nile is not sure. Now that she is just human, with her days numbered, in a sense, wouldn’t she want to slow down? Take it all in?

Or is she like Booker? Too tired and too desperate for it all to end, relieved to go when her time comes? 

She doesn’t avoid Andy, but the intensity of another woman gives Nile a pause every time their paths cross. Andy is never unfriendly, but Nile can’t help thinking that she has taken her place, stolen immortality from her. Never mind that she never asked for it. Never mind that she doesn’t want it. All she wants is to pick up the phone and call her family and go home.

She buys a new SIM card and calls her mother now and then during the time when she knows her mother is at work, all to hear her voice telling Nile to leave a message after a beep. She never does, careful to set her phone to an incognito mode. Even with a new number, it’s too much of a risk.

It aches all the same—the impossibility of touching something that is within her reach.

Some days, she misses them so much she can barely breathe.

Some days, she wants to chuck her phone against a wall just so she wouldn’t be so tempted to do something, say something. She’s never been known to be impulsive before. She might be now. A lot of the time, she wishes she was as old as the rest of them. Wishes this happened in the time when it was easier to get lost in the world.

“It will only hurt you more if you keep doing this,” Andy tells her when she finds Nile sitting on the front steps one afternoon, scrolling through the pictures of her brother’s graduation day.

And then there is this:

“What if I forget them?” Nile asks without looking up, and a question hangs between them for a long moment. “What if I wake up one day and won’t remember what they looked like, what they sounded like, what they liked to eat for breakfast?”

Andy lowers down on the stone steps next to her.

“You will,” she says simply, her gaze sweeping over the wide lawn and the field beyond it. “And you will learn to live with it.” She glances at Nile, and the anguish in her all but does Nile in—Andy is good at keeping to herself, at keeping her emotions in check. But when she doesn’t, it lands on you like a punch. “I wish I could tell you there is anything else in the cards for you, Nile. It will be less sharp, in time, but it will always be there. The longing. The missing.”

Nile nods and locks her phone, sticks it into the back pocket of her jeans. There are so many questions she wants to ask Andy. But she doesn’t know how and they’re running out of time.

“Come on,” Andy says after a moment as she stands up. “Let’s do something fun. I bet they didn’t teach you the art of sword fight in the Marines.”

* * *

She calls Booker three weeks later when she is certain that the rest of them are too busy to notice.

He picks up on the second ring.

_ “You’re not supposed to be talking to me,” _ he says by way of greeting but there is a smile in his voice that makes Nile smile, too.

She kicks the dirt in the driveway with the nose of her snicker and chuckles. “What are they gonna do? Kick me out of our very exclusive, super exclusionary club?”

She misses him more than she thought he would, what with only knowing him for a handful of days. Nicky and Joe are wonderful to her, very kind, very patient—more patient than she suspects she’d be in their place. And Andy is—well, Andy is a little terrifying at times, but they make her feel welcome, all the same.

But Andy is not one of them anymore, not really. And Nicky and Joe have each other—it’s not like they even know what she’s dealing with, that possibility of facing maybe centuries on her own, for the most part.

Booker, on the other hand, knows what she is feeling. And she longs for that sort of connection. For someone to tell her that it’s not so bad, even though she suspects that it is, based on how they got to meet and his deal with Merrick and all that. She wonders when she is going to be desperate enough to end her life at all costs, to just have some bloody rest.

And the one person who can help her deal with it is not allowed to be anywhere near.

_ “I hope they won’t,” _ Booker says on the other end, his voice suddenly wistful.  _ “It’s awfully lonely to be an outcast.” _

They talk twice a week after that. Nile doesn’t know if the others have figured it out, but no one ever says anything to her, and for that, she is grateful.

* * *

They teach her how to be one of them, too, and for what it’s worth, it provides a decent enough distraction—from all the questions swarming in her head, from the emptiness of the house and the old walls and the echo of her footsteps when no one is around.

“Come on, Nile, you’re better than this,” Joe says to her, shaking his head after he kicks her ass, artfully, for the third time in a row.

Panting, Nile rises to her feet, her muscles screaming from exertion and her chest tight, a sheen of sweat on her face. She tries not to think of Andy and Nicky watching them from the side-lines, undoubtedly ready to pitch in with suggestions and comments, when asked.

All those years in the Marines, and she still feels like an awkward child next to them.

“I’m not stronger than you are,” Joe continues, as if reading her thoughts. “It’s just technique. Balance. Come on, let’s do it one more time.”

It’s Nicky that she manages to slam into the ground eventually, and his smile is wider than her own as though she hasn’t just handed his ass back to him seconds ago. This, she admits, is nice. They are proud of her, and the sense of fierce protectiveness surges through her at the thought.

“Getting there,” Joe chuckles, helping them both up.

She will miss this, Nile thinks. When they are gone, she will miss them so much.

* * *

There are good times, too. Days not filled with thoughts and anxiety and the crippling, paralyzing fear of the future. On those days, she sticks to herself and shakes her head if they ask her anything—though most of the time, they don’t.

But the times that she likes best are when the world falls away and it’s just them, without the pressure of their  _ curse _ hovering over them. Nights spent over card games and arguments over Monopoly and some very bad, very lame karaoke experiences that make her laugh until she cries. It is watching bad films together and ordering pizza after one of them burns dinner.

“It may not always be like this, you know,” Joe says one day when the hole of loneliness and confusion grows so wide in Nile’s chest she fears it might turn her inside out. “There may be others, in time. It’s not like you’ll be stuck with just us, forever,” he jokes. 

“Could be worse,” she plays along, offering him a noncommittal shrug. “You could be one of the Kardashians.”

He chuckles, and his gaze softens. “I mean it, you know.”

Nile refuses to think about that. Not when she knows the cost of it—that one of them might lose their gift, or a curse, depending on how you look at it, if someone else became immortal. There is always a cost, she has learned that young.

She shakes her head and squeezes his arm.

“I’m fine,” she lies, and he doesn’t call her out on it. “Thanks, Joe.”

It is easy to be immortal, but hard, too.

And most days, she can’t tell the difference. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading :) Feedback is always welcome! 
> 
> Also I'm on [Tumblr](https://hiraeth-doux.tumblr.com/), please feel free to say hi!


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